Smartphone, Wireless, and Mobile Technologies Forum

Microsoft Corp. will provide an unprecedented amount of source code to licensees for its latest Windows CE operating system for electronic devices and allow them to own innovations they make to the software, the firm said on Monday.

Developers will be able to license one copy of Windows CE 5.0 for just US$3 to begin working on any changes they wish to make to the code, and manufacturers start paying a fee only when they begin shipping commercial products.

There are some details of building a CE 5.0 image here: - [windowsembeddedkit.com...] It includes a demo which includes drilling into the OS source to set a stop point on a line in the filesystem handler. CE 4.2 was also $3 per license for the core functionality, going up to $15 for the version that included pocket word, excel etc.

Seems like a good move to encourage embedded developers to use WinCE instead of linux.